from the Kino website;
"Andrey Zvyagintsev's THE RETURN, winner of the Golden Lion and The Best First Feature Film Award at the Venice International Film Festival in 2003. Also nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes in 2004, THE RETURN is one of the most impressive first-time feature films of the last decade."
"A mixture of psychological thriller and road movie, THE RETURN tells the story of two young brothers, Andrei (Vladimir Garin) and Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov), who must cope with the sudden and unexplained return of their long absent father. Unusually close and notably protective of each other’s interests, Andrei and Ivan embark on a destination-free road trip with the cryptic father––after years of gazing at his image on a torn photograph. But as hopes for a caring parent metamorphose into fear of abuse, a family getaway becomes the background for self-discovery and the destruction of deeply rooted emotional investments. As it turns out, the missing spots in the two boys’ pasts run deep, the distance between imagined fatherhood and the man in its symbolic center is breathtaking, and Andrei and Ivan’s need for a newly articulated relationship with parental guidance is a source of impenetrable pain."
Kino Films Andrei Zvyagintsev's "The Return" site
Deeply contemplative and effecting. You give this film time and it will reward.
